Chosen One Protective Services

The clock on the wall had cracks running all through its glass. Smears and smudges showed where someone had used superglue to patch it together. Nonetheless, the hands on it worked just fine, and as they waited in the little kitchen off the main hall, Cyrus kept a weather eye toward it. If he didn't have the truck back within an hour or so, there would be questions. Especially since Beth was involved. If anyone noticed her sneaking back into the house that would cause no end of trouble for her.

Cyrus shifted his gaze over to Catalina, watching her work, quickly and efficiently. The little kitchen's cupboards were stuffed with boxes and sundries, more food and supplies than he'd expected when he came out this way.

She caught him looking, squinted and tilted her head. “You're surprised? Why? You don't think I know how to make coffee?”

“No, it's... I'm glad you have coffee to spare. We don't want to be any trouble.”

She shrugged. “This isn't the main kitchen. The abuelas are using that one to prepare the night's dinner for the workers when they get back. This is just the one we keep for visitors and new arrivals.”

Cyrus glanced over at the overfull cupboards. “Looks like things are going well.”

“The workers get paid mostly pretty well, and we know a few people who sell us food pretty cheap.” She looked at the bubbling pot, pulled it off the stove, and poured a few cups. “How about you, pequeňa? You want some too? No sugar for this, sorry.”

“I'll take some,” Beth said. “Thank you very much Mrs. Morales.”

“Miss, now,” Catalina said. “My husband isn't with us any more.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Cyrus said.

Catalina walked over, set a cup in front of each of them on the battered formica table, and took a seat and a cup, herself.

Cyrus took a sip, found it bitter, but good. He let the caffeine hit his system, closed his eyes. Good stuff. Behind him, he heard Beth cough a little, and set her cup down, with a clink.

“You said your name was Colfax,” Catalina said. “It took me a little time, but I figured it out. Your farm is on our bad list.”

“Bad list?” Beth said, sounding surprised. “Why?”

“Something before my time. I only came here a couple of years ago. But the ones who escaped the last raid keep the lists, and they say that we aren't going to work for Colfax again. I can look it up if you want, but it won't change anything. So if your questions are can you get the people here to work for you, then no, you can't. I'm sorry.”

“No, it's nothing to do with that,” Cyrus said. “It's...” I can't waste time, here. “My brother is missing. Kidnapped.”

Catalina's eyes widened, then narrowed as she took a sip of her coffee. “And you think we took him? Why?”

“We don't,” Cyrus said. “You and I both know what would happen if anyone from this camp tried anything like that in this town. And nobody sane wants to see that.”

She relaxed a little, but not much.

“He was taken on the same day that Carmina was!” Beth burst in. “We think it might be the same people who did it!”

Catalina stood, nearly dropping her cup. “How did you know about that? Who are you? Where is she!”

Cyrus saw her tug on a chain hanging around her neck. He'd taken it for a locket or a cross, but to his horror, she pulled a small, metal whistle out of her bosom. This was about to go very bad, very quickly unless he took charge.

“We don't know,” he said, raising a hand. “Nobody knows. I saw my brother vanish into thin air, and I still don't completely believe it! Please, we're desperate! We're desperate,” he repeated, forcing himself to calm down. “That's why we're here.”

Catalina's eyes flicked between them, from Beth, who was sinking down into her seat, flushed, to Cyrus, looking deep into his eyes, fury and worry boiling behind her own. “Say that perhaps you are speaking the truth,” Catalina said. “This still doesn't explain how you know about Carmina. How?”

“Lacey,” Elizabeth said. “Back that last fall when we still hired migrants, umm.... 1953, I think? Carmina's dad brought his son along. Lacey and he... got along. They uh, played a lot. They mail each other when they can. His name is Raoul Bolivar.”

Cyrus did some mental math. Lacey would have been fifteen in 1953. He decided it was probably best not to inquire just how well this kid had “gotten along,” with his sister. Hell, this might be the reason his farm was on their bad list.

“Raoul Bolivar...” Catalina slipped the whistle back under her neckline. “Yes. He's one of the ones who didn't get taken by the raids. His father did. Raoul's out working... Coster's fields now,” she said, looking over to the door.

Cyrus turned back, saw a calendar stuck to it that he'd missed before. It had index cards hanging from various days, all scattered around the board, and the cards were filled with precise handwriting. Dozens of names, he saw. “You keep track of everyone? Why are they on different days?”

“Those are their paydays,” Catalina said, sitting down again.

“You keep track of their paydays?” Cyrus asked.

“We have to. If everyone starts lining up on the same payday, then we know we've got problems.”

“Why?” Beth asked.

“Because that means that the farmers have talked to La Migra and arranged for them to raid us a day or two before the farmers have to pay us.” Catalina said. She took a pull of her coffee. “That's probably why your farm is on our bad list. Or something like that.”

“Oh,” Beth said, shocked. “That's horrible!”

“It is what it is,” Catalina shrugged. Then she put her cup down, and looked to Cyrus. “I believe you now. But I don't know if we can help. I can't explain how Carmina was taken. It makes no sense.”

Cyrus felt a building certainty. Just for a minute, just for a bit, there was hope creeping up inside him. “Let me take a guess,” he said. “There was a man, probably an old man wearing a robe.”

Catalina said nothing, sipped her coffee as she stared at him.

“He talked to the child. And then they just disappeared. And there were no tracks or anything to show where they'd gone.”

He saw it in slow motion, as Catalina's eyes went wide, and her hands opened. Saw the coffee cup start to fall...

...and he lashed out, caught it one-handed, lowered it to the table.

But she never broke eye contact. “What do you know?” she whispered.

“That's what happened to Rusty,” he said.

Catalina swallowed. “That's all?” she asked, her voice cracking, hopeful.

Cyrus looked away from her eager gaze, knowing that he was about to dash whatever hope he'd just awakened. “I don't know any more than that. Nothing that would help. I don't know where they went, but I think some kind of... wizard, took our children. I don't know why or how.” He looked back up, saw that she was hanging on his words, but there wasn't the dying hope that he'd feared. Her eyes showed resolve, and determination.

She really was quite pretty, he noted. And then he shoved that notion far away. NOT the time for it. “Can you show me where it happened?” he asked. “Maybe there's something...”

*****

The little shack that they used as a schoolhouse was up against the fence around the transformer station. It hummed loudly in their ears as Catalina showed them the single room, the tar-paper and clapboard walls, and the scavenged seats and pulpit that she used as a lectern. She was the current schoolteacher here, in Bunktown.

But Cyrus well marked the spliced cable poking through a hole in the wall, and the wiring that spun up to the light bulbs in the ceiling, and the space heater at the back of the room. That was professional work, better than he could do, and he pointed that out to her.

“Esteban used to be an electrician, back when we were in Guatemala,” Catalina said. “He's the reason we don't have power problems.”

“The power company doesn't mind you tapping the transformers?” Cyrus asked, incredulously.

“Oh, they adjusted them the last time they were out here,” Catalina said. “Esteban said that they had set them up to kill the next person who touched them improperly. But he is clever, and he undid their work.”

“I'd like to talk with him,” Cyrus said. “I'm honestly impressed. Could learn a thing or two. Where is he now?”

Catalina shrugged. “The fields,” she said simply. “Picking crops for forty-two cents an hour.”

“That's a damn crime,” Cyrus said. “Hands that can do work like this shouldn't be breaking their skin on crops.”

“It is how it is,” she shrugged. “Perhaps one day it will be different. But until then, he has to eat, too.”

“Did he vanish from here?” Beth asked, dragging Cyrus' mind back to the present. They were on the clock, he knew.

“No,” Catalina said. “This is where I was, this is where the children were, when it happened. Carmina had just asked to visit the outhouse. I told her yes, go quickly.” Catalina crossed over to the wall away from the transformer station, and raised the blind over the eastern window. The sun stabbed in, and once their eyes had adjusted, she pointed to a small, square building off away from the rest of them. “Then Lupo looked out the window, and he shouted that there was someone talking to Carmina. They were wearing a big bathrobe, he said.”

“Robe,” Cyrus muttered. He leaned on his cane. “About where did it happen?”

“There,” Catalina pointed at a patch of dirt that looked like someone had been digging in it. “By the time I got to the window, they were gone. The other kids got there before me, though. The children said that Carmina and the stranger had just vanished. We saw her tracks going to the Outhouse, because it had been raining just before. But we did not see her tracks going away. Her parents searched everywhere. Her father went a little mad, he dug down to see if there was a trapdoor, or something. There wasn't. We would have let him dig, but there are underground cables all over here. He would have killed himself with electricity or broken something.”

Cyrus nodded. “This lines up.” He let out a breath. “This is exactly like what happened. Except I saw it with my own eyes. But I can't explain it.”

“So what do we do?” Beth asked.

Cyrus shared a look with Carmina. The look that said It's been almost a month since the children went missing, and this probably isn't going to end well.

“I can do nothing,” Catalina said. “Nobody here can. This is beyond us.”

“If you go to the police too...” Beth started, then stopped.

“The police want nothing to do with us, except for us to make no trouble and pay them money every month,” Catalina said. “They do not care.”

“I wish you were wrong about that,” Cyrus said. “To be honest, the sheriff didn't care much about Rusty. But I'm trying to shake some trees a bit higher up. Trying to get the attention of someone bigger than them.”

“Yes,” Catalina smiled. “That is why I took you here. You can do things we cannot. And when you do, maybe you find Carmina too? Her name is Carmina de Rojas. I think it's a false name, but I didn't ask. But her parents miss her, and they would very much like for her to come home. She's perhaps a little older than your child, here?”

“My sister,” Cyrus said. “I'm unmarried.”

“Are you?” Catalina said. Then her eyes slid away, a touch too quickly. “Well. I am sorry. You must go, now. If there is nothing more you can do here, you must go before anyone sees you are here. It would bring only trouble.”

“Reckon you're right,” Cyrus said, nodding. He stood, and looked at her awkwardly.

She looked back, considered him, then darted forward and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you,” she said, then hurried out the door.

Cyrus stared after her.

Beth giggled.

Cyrus glared at his sister.

Beth just smiled back.

“She was nice,” she said.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said. “Wish I had better news for her. Come on. Let's get back before Mom realizes you're gone.”

Halfway back to the truck, an idea half-bubbled up in Cyrus' mind, and he turned, considered the high metal poles and snaking cabling of the transformer station. He listened to its grinding whine, licked his lips and tasted the hint of ozone in the air.

There was something here, some clue he was missing, but damned if he could put it together. He needed more pieces.

Sadly, the next clue wouldn't come along until after Bunktown was gone.